Certified Contract Proofing on a budget!

Ok, I'll swing back at you and tell you I was a photo assistant in NYC for eight years before working for the largest publisher in America in prepress. I have been a high end retoucher for nine years. I know this business.

Sure you do, that explains the lack of transparency. That explains your question “What is this "contract proof"? Who is the "contract" between? What parties? What is the responsibility, and to whom? How does that work?” For all we know, you’re a pimply faced teenager who’s daddy runs a quick print ship in upper Utah. Wow, a real NY photo assistant? Damn, before I got a degree in Photography at Art Center, I was only an LA assistant (for a couple years, I found actually shooting jobs for clients a better avenue).

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And never, never, have I heard of a photographer or retoucher, who I assume is the audience here, handing a proof to the final printer or client to match, unless it was a photographer who hired a printer directly, and kept complete control of the final product with, well, I suppose, a contract.

I’m sure there is lots you’ve never heard of after this series of posts!

I never said anything about a photographer or retoucher handing a contract proof to the final printer. I said that group either needs someone in the chain to do so OR have a paper contract that voids any liability for anything that goes wrong on press that they may be blamed for. Neither did the OP. He asked about a product that until yesterday you didn’t know about, a contract proof. He asked if it could be done on an Epson (it can). Before you even came here, I told this audience that anything that is contractually agreed upon by two or more parties can be considered a contract proof (or do I have to teach you what the term ‘contract’ means?). I used the term Print buyer and printer. If the photographer or retoucher is the print buyer, so be it. I as a photographer had many ad’s printed on press for promotion, I was in the Black Book! I was the print buyer and yes, I had contact proofs done every time.

What part about the first post I made don’t you understand other than the term contract proof?

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Anyone that pays for press work without a contract proof could be in a very expensive and dangerous situation if there's a mismatch.

And yes, you do make a lot of assumptions! Here we agree.

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I make proofs daily, now converted to Gracol, in my day to day work for the company I work for right now.

I see you also don’t understand what you just wrote too. GRACoL what? It’s like saying “I work in RGB.” GRACoL 2006? GRACoL 2013? G7? Maybe dad can assist <G>.

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Yeah, I saw your bio. You consult. Fine. World's full of them. Seminars are profitable these days, it seems. You really have to get out of the rarified air of "consulting" before you try to impress someone who has actually been in the trenches for forty years.

I figured you’d go there. In your failed attempt to understand what’s being discussed and in my aim to educate you, you now want to bring up that I consult and do seminars that in some way dismisses the facts I’ve presented to you. The facts you have conveniently ignored. So you hide behind an alias yet tell us all your experience, then bring in a straw man to hide your lack of understanding on the subject. You’re a real legend in your own mind Dr. Profane.

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But, you didn't answer my question. How many times have you sent one of these "contract proofs" off to a printer?

Over the last 25+ years, I’ve lost count. Perhaps hundreds. But you’re asking the wrong question of course. How many I made isn’t important, how many are made daily in just the US is the question you should be asking, once you understand what a contract proof is. I provided some URL’s. Do your homework.

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You're doing some people a lot of disservice by telling them they a have some sort of control over their images besides a little Lightroom and Photoshop work before they leave the nest.

I never said that. But it you sir who is doing the audience here a disservice. And I suspect by now, most if not all know this. I’ve answered all your questions. Hopefully you learned a trick about funneling the gamut of a tagged RGB doc into a CMYK gamut. Hopefully you now know what a contract proof is. Hopefully others reading your posts see you hide behind a persona, you like to argue with people who know more than you do while ignoring the fact’s they provide only to show your ignorance.

Get in the last word Penny or Benny, it will only illustrate you’re a frustrated individual who needs to argue without any salient points to back up his POV. Somone who asks a lot of questions that are not well thought out and needs to inflate his bkgnd without an ounce of transparency. And it appears at this point in the discussion kind of foolish little child. The floor is yours.